


Shifting Paradigm

by AlienStarlight



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: F/F, Gen, I'm Sorry, Internal Conflict, Introspection, Pseudo-Incest, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 11:31:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19106236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlienStarlight/pseuds/AlienStarlight
Summary: Terran Emperor- whoops, that is to say, revered Captain Phillipa Georgiou has a quick bitter run-through of her brief conversation with Michael's biological mother. Settling some of her thoughts where they should be, whether or not the absent time-traveler would approve.Just a little attempt at one of my favourite shows, and the more messier of ships. Written specifically after that episode where Mirror Phillipa talks to a restrained time-traveling Gabrielle Burnham (doesn't take into account later events).





	Shifting Paradigm

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not proceed if this ship squicks you out. Nothing explicit here, but still.

It twists your insides like snakes uncoiling restlessly, snakes that should be still and scheming along with the rest of you. 

How dare she look into your eyes and penetrate the walls of your clearly worthier being, knowing who and what you truly are. 

How _dare_ she see you and probably a million other iterations of you, regardless of your unique superiority, falter when confronted with the reality of her daughter. 

_Your_ daughter. 

And yet, not your daughter at all. Especially now, more than ever, not your Burnham whom you had raised and failed. Not the Burnham who looked at you and saw a terrible dictator instead of a maternal figure she loved and betrayed. No, _this_ Burnham knew you as a dictator of an alternate realm but only in name; her short visit to your universe had barely been enough to give her firsthand sight of all that you were. 

Yet, and this never stops infuriating you, this Burnham had subconsciously seen you as the maternal figure that she had loved and lost, and decided to bring you back with her to her realm. 

Stupid girl. Does she have any idea what she does to you every second of your existence here, looking at you with barely a thinly-veiled look away from how she must've looked at your late counterpart? 

It insults you because you cannot dispel the ridiculous shift in your affections towards this universe's Michael Burnham. Where you once saw a carbon copy of your lost daughter, you now see...something else. 

What she could have been? No, your Michael was weak. You'd still loved her in spite of it, although you will refuse to admit this. Like a mother, of course. 

But _this_ Michael Burnham? How could you not fall in love _with_ her? She is not your daughter, not really _your_ daughter, and she differs from her in so many little ways and quite a few big ones. You've done many things in your flavourful life that others look upon as "sick" or "disgusting" or "perverted", but rarely have you ever taken into consideration that you might one day feel that way yourself. 

You have always been selfish, of course, it is the only way to survive as long as you did. It is a word often used to subjugate people into being more likely to bend to one's will. And you bend to nobody's will. 

Neither does this Michael. She is purely, utterly resilient, but never have you met a more selfless person - she is the polar opposite of you in that sense, a hero, a martyr, a light. 

A light and a black hole. 

You always catch yourself wondering at what this realm's version of you was like; you do know, of course, because everyone who sees you and assumes you are her paints you a damn good picture. But no, you wonder what she was really like, what it would have been like to _be_ her. To be the kind of person who helped carve out the individual that is this universe's Michael Burnham. 

Clearly you and your dead version must have been polar opposites as well. 

But back to the present. 

You were taking a little breather after the chain of traumatic events, reflecting on your chat with Michael's biological mother. How she had hinted that you would once again sacrifice yourself for her daughter. How she had spoken as if it would be your mother's instinct, as if this Michael was your daughter too. 

She is wrong. 

Your Michael is dead. 

And this Michael, this enduring young woman with miniscule cracks beneath her skin and a pulsating sun for a heart, who walks right into the face of death to save the future, you are in love with this Michael. Romantic love, a mania, an erotic attraction. Yes, you are a sexual deviant and a monster, but you are known for those things already. 

You long to hold her light within your hands as if you could ever contain her, long to touch her and caress her the way you have done many others meaninglessly. With her, there will be meaning, you know it, there will be feeling and logic and everything that was ever lacking in your pursuits of lesser beings. Because the whisper of a suspicion flirts with your conscious mind, that this Michael Burnham may be greater than even yourself. 

And if it appeased the stomachs of those whose small minds were limited by such details, you are technically not the maternal figure this Michael looked up to and lost. And she knows this now. It has been a longer time hitting home than it should have been, but you do finally see the change in her gaze. Despite knowing what you were, she used to look at you with the glimmer of her Captain Georgiou's ghost in her eyes. Now she looks at you and there is no ghost; only the spark of defiance is visible in her stare, burning brighter than ever, along with caution and disappointment and challenge. And, dare you say, a certain fondness. 

You're not her comforting dead Captain. But you'll be damned if you haven't grown on her regardless. 

After all, you were an Emperor. Does not a Ruler of an Empire trump a dead Starfleet Captain? 

Perhaps her arrogant biological mother is right, and even your superior self will ultimately willingly stand in between Michael and destruction, when push comes to shove, like some sort of unyielding destiny. But it will not be because her daughter is your daughter. 

It will be because her daughter, by the grace of fortune, is your lover. 

\--

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> (I do not personally condone *ncest, whether pseudo or otherwise. Any concepts that point thus are meant to be conveyed by the character in the fic!)


End file.
